Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-qs9v7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T10:58:15.494Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Introduction: Loss of Confidence and Policy Change in the 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2011

David Brian Robertson
David Brian Robertson
Affiliation:
University of Missouri, St. Louis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The 1970s had at least as powerful an impact on the course of American public policy as the decade that preceded it. Polls showed that confidence in large institutions—including government—was wearing down under the burden of crisis, complexity, scandal, and doubt. Inflation, economic stagnation, and severe oil shortages directly disrupted individual lives. Faith in the future of the nation, its economy, its institutions, and its government eroded.

Type
Introduction
Information
Journal of Policy History , Volume 10 , Special Issue 1: Loss of Confidence: Politics and Policy in the 1970s , January 1998 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Stanley, Harold W. and Niemi, Richard G., Vital Statistics on American Politics, 4th ed. (Washington, D.C., 1994), 122–25, 158Google Scholar. On the Democratic coalition, see Edsall, Thomas Byrne, Chain Reaction: The Impact of Race, Rights, and Taxes on American Politics (New York, 1992)Google Scholar; Frendreis, John P. and Tatalovich, Raymond, The Modern Presidency and Economic Policy (Itasca, Ill., 1994), 240Google Scholar; Sundquist, James L., Politics and Policy: The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson Years (Washington, D.C., 1968)Google Scholar; Reichley, A. James, Conservatives in an Age of Change: The Nixon and Ford Administrations (Washington, D.C., 1981)Google Scholar.

2. Bullock, Charles S. and Lamb, Charles S., Implementation of Civil Rights Policy (Monterey, Calif., 1984), 65Google Scholar; Campbell, Ballard C., The Growth of American Government: Governance from the Cleveland Era to the Present (Bloomington, Ind., 1995)Google Scholar, passim; Robertson, David Brian and Judd, Dennis R., The Development of American Public Policy: The Structure of Policy Restraint (Glenview, 1989), 141, 149–50Google Scholar; Congressional Budget Office, The Economic and Budget Outlook: Fiscal Years 1998–2007 (Washington, D.C., 1997), 105–15Google Scholar; Baldwin, Malcolm Forbes, “The Federal Government's Role in the Management of Private Land,” in Lacey, Michael J., ed., Government and Environmental Politics: Essays on Historical Developments Since World War Two (Washington, D.C., 1989), 195Google Scholar.

3. Lindblom, Charles E., Politics and Markets: The World's Political Economic Systems (New York, 1977), 3Google Scholar.

4. Stanley and Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 169, 434; Lipset, Seymour Martin and Schneider, William, The Confidence Gap: Business, Labor, and Government in the Public Mind (New York, 1983)Google Scholar.

5. Carter, Jimmy, “The Energy Problem: An Address to the Nation,” in Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Jimmy Carter, 1977, Book I (Washington, D.C., 1977), 656–62Google Scholar, and “Energy and National Goals,” in ibid., 1979, Book II (Washington, D.C., 1980), 1235–40.

6. Michael Wines, “Successful Political Books Are Less Sober, More Pop,” New York Times, February 17, 1996, 25; The Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade Information (New York, 1970–81)Google Scholar.

7. Lowi, Theodore J., The End of Liberalism: The Second Republic of the United States (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Stockman, David, The Triumph of Politics: The Inside Story of the Reagan Revolution (New York, 1986), 37–38Google Scholar.

8. Rose, Richard and Peters, B. Guy, Can Government Go Bankrupt? (New York, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, data on National Employment, Hours, and Earnings, Total Private Average Hourly Earnings, 1982 Dollars, Seasonally Adjusted, 1947–1997, <http://stats.bls.gov:80/cgi-bin/surveymost> (13 May 1997); Bok, Derek, The State of the Nation (Cambridge, Mass., 1996), 99Google Scholar; Gourevitch, Peter, Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986)Google Scholar; Weir, Margaret, Politics and Jobs: The Boundaries of Employment Policy in the United States (Princeton, 1992)Google Scholar.

10. Bluestone, Barry and Harrison, Bennett, The Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment, and the Dismantling of Basic Industry (New York, 1982)Google Scholar; Stanley and Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 190.

11. Bensel, Richard Franklin, Sectionalism and American Political Development, 1880–1980 (Madison, Wis., 1984)Google Scholar; Rones, Philip L., “Moving Toward the Sun: Regional Job Growth, 1968–1978,” Monthly Labor Review 103 (March 1980): 12–19Google Scholar; Mackenzie, G. Calvin, The Irony of Reform: The Roots of American Political Disenchantment (Boulder, Colo., 1996), 18Google Scholar.

12. U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1996 (Washington, D.C., 1996), 399Google Scholar; Steve Rawlings and Arlene Saluter, Household and Family Characteristics: March 1994, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P20–483 (Washington, D.C., 1995), vii; Levine, Suzanne and Lyons, Harriet, The Decade of Women: A Ms. History of the Seventies in Words and Pictures (New York, 1980)Google Scholar; Gelb, Joyce and Palley, Marian Leif, Women and Public Policies (Princeton, 1982)Google Scholar; Mayer, William G., The Changing American Mind: How and Why American Public Opinion Changed between 1960 and 1988 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1992), 121Google Scholar.

13. Jo Martin, Cathie, “Business and the New Economic Activism: The Growth of Corporate Lobbies in the Sixties,” Polity 27 (Fall 1994): 49–76Google Scholar; McQuaid, Kim, Uneasy Partners: Big Business in American Politics, 1945–1990 (Baltimore, 1994)Google Scholar; Vogel, David, Fluctuating Fortunes: The Political Power of Business in America (New York, 1989)Google Scholar.

14. Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr., The Imperial Presidency (Boston, 1973)Google Scholar; Reedy, George E., The Twilight of the Presidency: From Johnson to Reagan, rev. ed. (New York, 1987)Google Scholar.

15. Wildavsky, Aaron, “A World of Difference: The Public Philosophies and Political Behaviors of Rival American Cultures,” in King, Anthony, ed., The New American Political System, 2d ed. (Washington, D.C., 1990), 263–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. Rosenbaum, Walter A., Environmental Policy and Politics, 3d ed. (Washington, D.C., 1995), 36Google Scholar; James A. Morone discusses the erosion of professional autonomy in medicine in The Democratic Wish: Popular Participation and the Limits of American Government (New York, 1990), 253–85Google Scholar.

17. Bosso, Christopher J., Pesticides and Politics: The Life Cycle of a Public Issue (Pittsburgh, 1987)Google Scholar; Derthick, Martha and Quirk, Paul J., The Politics of Deregulation (Washington, D.C., 1985)Google Scholar; Heclo, Hugh, “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment,” in King, Anthony, ed., The Neu– American Political System (Washington, D.C., 1978), 87–124Google Scholar; Baumgartner, Frank R. and Jones, Bryan D., Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Chicago, 1993), 45Google Scholar; Mucciaroni, Gary, Reversals of Fortune: Public Policy and Private Interests (Washington, D.C., 1995)Google Scholar; Heinz, John P., Laumann, Edward O., Nelson, Robert L., and Salisbury, Robert H., The Hollow Core: Private Interests in National Policy Making (Cambridge, Mass., 1993)Google Scholar. Grant McConnell discusses the preceding period of close relationships between interests and public officials in Private Power and American Democracy (New York, 1966)Google Scholar.

18. Rosenbaum, Environmental Policy and Politics, 30; Davidson, Roger H., The Postreform Congress (New York, 1992)Google Scholar; Ginsberg, Benjamin and Shefter, Martin, Politics by Other Means: The Decline of Elections in America (New York, 1990), 6Google Scholar; Lunch, William M., The Nationalization of American Politics (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), 193Google Scholar.

19. Heclo, “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment,” 93.

20. Sundquist, James L., The Decline and Resurgence of Congress (Washington, D.C., 1981)Google Scholar; Ginsberg and Shefter, Politics by Other Means.

21. Sundquist, The Decline and Resurgence of Congress, 367–414; Davidson, Th Postreform Congress.

22. Ginsberg and Shefter, Politics by Other Means, 149–50; Mackenzie, The Irony of Reform; Stanley and Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 308; Rosenbaum, Environmental Policy and Politics, 30; Mansbridge, Jane J., Why We Lost the ERA (Chicago, 1986)Google Scholar.

23. James W. Caesar, “Political Parties—Declining, Stabilizing, or Resurging?” in King, ed., The New American Political System, 87–138; Stanley and Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 175, 212; Reichley, A. James, “The Rise of National Parties,” in Chubb, John E. and Peterson, Paul E., eds., The New Direction in American Politics (Washington, D.C., 1985), 175–200Google Scholar; Sorauf, Frank J., Inside Campaign Finance: Myths and Realities (New Haven, 1992)Google Scholar.

24. Austin Ranney, “Broadcasting, Narrowcasting, and Politics,” in King, ed., The New American Political System, 175–202.

25. Merrill Brown, “A Boom Industry Free to Call Its Shots,” Washington Post, January 12, 1981, 1; Wines, Michael, “The FCC and Its Critics Are at Odds on How to Control the Video Explosion,” National Journal 14 (August 14, 1982): 1408Google Scholar.

26. Stanley and Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 146, 213–14; Sundquist, The Decline and Resurgence of Congress, 397; Heclo, “Issue Networks,” 112; Crotty, William and Jacobson, Gary, American Parties in Decline (Boston, 1980)Google Scholar.

27. Phillips, Kevin P., The Emerging Republican Majority (New Rochelle, N.Y., 1969)Google Scholar and Post-Conservative America: People, Politics, and Ideology in a Time of Crisis (New York, 1982)Google Scholar; Cavanagh, Thomas E. and Sundquist, James L., “The New Two Party System,” in Chubb, John E. and Peterson, Paul E., eds., The New Direction in American Politics (Washington, D.C., 1985), 33–67Google Scholar.

28. Stein, Herbert, Presidential Economics: The Making of Economic Policy from Roosevelt to Clinton, 3d rev. ed. (Washington, D.C., 1994), 140–43, 225–31Google Scholar; Eisner, Marc Allen, The State in the American Political Economy: Public Policy and the Evolution of State-Economy Relations (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1995), 260–83Google Scholar.

29. Juan Cameron, “Carter Takes on the Budget Monster,” Fortune, January 1977, 82; “Federal Spending Restraint in Vogue,” National Journal 11:51–52 (December 22, 1979): 2150; Lou Cannon, “Gov. Brown Seeks Balanced Budget Amendment,” Washington Post, 8 January 1979, 1.

30. Frendreis and Tatalovich, The Modern Presidency and Economic Policy, 276; Stein, Presidential Economics, 246; Wanniski, Jude, The Way the World Works (New York, 1978)Google Scholar.

31. Baumgartner and Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics, 142–44; Greene, John Robert, The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford (Lawrence, Kan., 1995), 90–95Google Scholar; Stanley and Niemi, Vital Statistics on American Politics, 324; Yates, Douglas, The Ungovernable City: The Politics of Urban Problems and Policy-Making (Cambridge, Mass., 1980)Google Scholar; Robert Pear, “Panel on National Goals Proposes U.S. Aid for Migration to Sun Belt,” New York Times, 27 December 1980, 1.

32. Mansbridge, Why We Lost the ERA, 12–13; Kingdon, John, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2d ed. (New York, 1995)Google Scholar; Tolchin, Susan J. and Tolchin, Martin, Dismantling America: The Rush to Deregulate (New York, 1983)Google Scholar; Harris, Richard A. and Milkis, Sidney M., The Politics of Regulatory Change: A Tale of Two Agencies, 2d ed. (New York, 1996)Google Scholar

33. Davis, David Howard, Energy Politics, 4th ed. (New York, 1993), 109–13, 116Google Scholar; Greene, The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford, 78–79; Hargrove, Erwin C., Jimmy Carter as President: Leadership and the Politics of the Public Good (Baton Rouge, La., 1988)Google Scholar.

34. Carroll, Peter N., It Seemed Like Nothing Happened: The Tragedy and Promise of America in the 1970s (New York, 1982)Google Scholar.